Ear plugs or a divorce.

Works for me.

Our 12 plate Touran was updated and ran fine… it didn’t get many short runs mind you. We swapped it for a petrol Golf , our first petrol car for a decade, I had a feeling hassle was on the horizon with the Touran and didn’t want to fall fully out of love with VW.

Brill weekend.. Raced the Enduro on the Sat with 5 mates, all finished in one piece too.
No punctures this year and finished 83rd with a 23.04 , happy with that on such a great set of trails… Favourites were 4 & 5 with 6 being an absolute hoot flat out finish.. Some new drops this year too which were a nice surprise.
Great atmosphere and worth all the effort and prep.. Ard Moors next.

Just swapped our 12 plate Touran for a Golf estate after owning it for 5 years.
I used to remove the middle rear seat and with the front wheel off the bike it could stand up in the back and still fit 4 people and luggage…
Pros…
Flexible interior, always find a cubby hole to store stuff.
Drove well, road holding and comfortable.
Pretty reliable over 60K we had a circulation pump replaced and usual cam belt and bits.

Cons…
The 1.6 diesel is pretty gutless
No spare wheel ( what a ridiculous idea) caught us out twice
Not the best quality VW I have owned and this was my 9th. The new Golf is night and day by comparison.
DPF which never caused us an issue but I fell out of love with the Diesel engine after the emissions update, so got the TSi Golf.
Wouldn’t go into reverse some mornings, no idea why.

It ticked lots of boxes for us, would consider another but the 2.0l SE Spec.

Generally pretty decent cars, all depends on the spec/money and how much of a warranty is left on it.. As others have said Honest John is a good place for info. things like heaters catching fire in the Zaria’s isn’t a plus point for me personally.
Last Vauxhall we had was an Insignia which I can report do roll rather well especially down a country lane after a rear tyre went bang.. we were the last owners of that one.

Have a set of Hopes comin up for 5 years old and apart from cosmetic damage have been faultess ,they do spin nice and freely from hours of use.. great pedals ! Grip with 5:10s has never been an issue in most extremes of conditions ..

And that’s Number Wang

That was brill… some flat out sections in there mate. Nice one

Murray mania init.

Butchers Arms at Pontsyphalis is a great, bunkhouse and the owner looks a bit like Bob Carolgees…it’s about 15 mins out of Merthyr we stay there every time.

I don’t miss this cr@p in the slightest… left the world of pdp and objectives for a measly 2% for being a good boy BS…
Self employed now and my objective is to earn good money with the bonus of gaining massive satisfaction from making my clients homes more beautiful than when I started.

in the early noughties…offering to help my now ex-wife with a massive cool box up that there huge hill out of Glastonbury to the campervan field… with hindsight should of shoved her in it and rolled it down the hill… on fire

Older pre DPF diesels, if looked after can do massive mileage.
Not to say the newer / later euro 5&6 cars won’t do big 200K + mileage but there is more consumable bits to replace eventually.
My old 97 A4 had 268K on the clock when I sold it and was running really sweet.. I do run my oil burners on the posh stuff though.

Quite a few years ago…Plant manager for a large pharma company… during a steam shutdown, whilst trying to get steam back into the plant on a hot day ( nothing was calling for heat and it was taking forever) decided to open a few valves onto our heating rigs for the vessels… This had no effect at all so closed them and thought no more about it…
2 days later…. dreadful smell from our day tanks of Marlotherm heating fluid , it was unmistakable, it appears my 4 storey plant has lost pretty much all of its heating fluid through a burst heat exchanger on that heating rig I had opened and contaminated all of the drains and from one side of site to the other!!! Cue lots of people dressed in disposable overalls with masks on and lots of swearing…. The only saving grace was we didn’t discharge the day tanks to the local sewage farm !!!!
Cost— er lots
Plant shut down for — er 3 months
Me — kept gob shut.

@P-Jay… yep might well have sat mesmerised by bongo drums and other stuff in the stone circle together…
Visited Glasto.. 98, 99, 00, 02,03, 2010 &13 despite it becoming safer and more gentrified in the later years it’s still one hell of an experience , really like the smaller areas like Area 9 and the Park stage and when it all gets a bit much to chill out in the sacred space with the Bongos and fire twirling… the problem nowadays is getting a ticket..

@P-Jay… 1998 was my first Glasto and your post made me smile … was amazing but damn wild and slightly out of control.. it was ace !!!
You are never too old it’s the pace that changes.

I’ve run my (122K) 09 Caddy on it and the engine is really smooth, drivable from low revs and very little smoke..
had the same with our old P plate A4 (263K) , it loved it. I suspect it’s the fact the internals of the engine are cleaner which makes the whole combustion process easier.
I’m a fan.

You have a msg.

I ran a Gravity Dropper for 5 years .. Simple reliable not the prettiest but dead easy to look after. It’s sat in the loft not doing a great deal if you are after a 2nd hand one ? Email in profile.

Was open yesterday, pretty sure it’s open over the whole w/e.
Dry as a bone and running great.

Was looking for a new pack to replace my tired nomad.. cheers OP

I fitted one to my bike with a Praxis 11/40..
It allows the derailleur to sit in a more natural position where you can use the original B tension screw and you get a more of the chain sat on the cassette, so there should in theory be less wear to your new Sunrace.
I fitted mine ages ago and its worked so far.

Surface to Air
Wheels off ground
Pints in pub

Just retired my 5 after 7 years of all round abuse and use looking at the scars on the frame…. replaced with something more modern and using the drivetrain and wheels off the 5 which weren’t the originals…
even though it’s retired and snoozing in the loft I have a plan to put back to standard and use it for some light stuff again one day… orange 5’s never die…

Road rage is very odd
I had a 4×4 pick up brake very suddenly behind me whilst waiting to turn right, I was on my MTB. The driver shouts alsorts of lovely things and claims he didn’t see me indicate, I was wearing White gloves too.
He follows me on foot having parked his truck, shouting whilst approaching me as I am waiting outside our LBS to start a ride.
I refused to get into an argument or start trading insults as this never works, what really blew the wind out of his sails was I could smell alcohol on his breath and pointed this out to him… A suggestion was made to go away before I called the cops.. He did…
What a dick though… Seriously.

Also heard from ABTOT today, should have my deposit back by the end of the month… 🙂

Our family yellow lab eat the Budgie !
It tried to land on her head but the dog had other ideas and swallowed it whole….

Thanks hughjayteens… dont know about you but I was proper looking forward to this too.

double post … sorry

@timbud so what happened ?… we are pretty out of pocket due to this and really want to know if we stand a chance of getting a refund.. we were booked on the TS tour.

Bugger….. and stuff.
2 of us had paid deposits for the TS tour after the Trans Savoie proper was cancelled.. thank fully we hadn’t paid the balance.. still a bit cross tho’

When we were there last there was a time and motion bloke with a tank top and matching rucksac,who was timing the lads driving the vans and guiding on and off the job. It turns out they are only allowed to work 37 hours/wk… otherwise a fine etc etc.

Ta daaaaa
Finished in time for its maiden trip to Afan and recently a trip to BPW

First impressions are excellent, running it with 26″ wheels in the slack position for “fun” stuff and really pleased with the Fox bouncy bits, my first 36/160 fork and the X2 was well worth the wait. Still fine tweaking it and learning the new characteristics over the 5. It flies though, covers ground really well and never feels out of its depth..
Got a couple of big mountain trips to do this year, counting the sleeps 😀

Shocking

Also helps with one of life’s joys. Cold winter night rides without a pack, or indeed any spares. Or even a water bottle.

Just started doing this myself, very liberating!

Tubeless on all my bikes running Stans & Halo rims, have been for the last 3-4 years with only 1 puncture last year. On our recent night ride out of 15 riders the only one who got a flat (twice) was riding tubes, it was on a trail where they had cut the hedges.
At the end of the year we have an awards dinner and one of the prizes is a tubeless kit for the guy who is still riding in Black and White and got the most punctures 🙂

Butchers Arms face

+1 Salsa Lip lock

Sorry to hear this, it is heartbreaking when they get old.
Our lab is the same age. He is on Vivitonin and we take him swimming twice a week which has given him loads more strength in his wobbly back end.
Fingers crosse for you both.